


winter, formal

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Christmas, Dancing, Fluff, M/M, Neil is a disaster, No Angst, Prompt Fill, kind of, winter formal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 11:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16660069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Neil tries to get away from a boring conversation and accidentally ends up asking the most popular guy in school to dance with him at the winter formal.





	winter, formal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lolainslackss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolainslackss/gifts).



> Just a silly little thing for the prompt: "i’m trying to get away from an annoying person at the winter formal so i decide to ask the next person who walks by my table to dance and you just happen to be the most popular person in school" (from [this list](https://veronicabunchwrites.tumblr.com/post/179652750577/100-wintery-prompts-for-all-your-writing))

It wasn’t that Neil didn’t want to talk to Marissa, he just really, really didn’t want to talk to Marissa.

For some reason, she kept telling him about her sister’s baby. Neil had never met Marissa’s sister and didn’t particularly care about babies, and when she pulled out her phone to show him yet another picture of her nephew dressed in a Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer onesie, Neil decided he’d had enough.

“Excuse me,” he said, in a tone that stated clearly how little he cared if she excused him or not. He saw someone walking past their table out of the corner of his eye and shot up from his chair abruptly enough to make them falter in their step.

“Dance with me,” Neil blurted out before his brain caught up and recognised who was standing before him. It was too late to take it back now, and given a choice between looking at baby photos for the rest of the night and being publically shot down by the most popular guy in school, well. Neil _really_ didn’t care for babies.

Andrew Minyard blinked slowly at him, processed the question, and then said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Neil echoed weakly. “Right. Cool. Yeah.”

He ignored Marissa’s scandalised gasp and furious typing as she probably relayed the news to several of her friends. Andrew had been part of Kevin Day’s clique before Kevin graduated last year. He wore beat-up leather jackets, smoked on school grounds, had impeccable grades despite never speaking up in class, and always carried candy around in his pockets. There were a great many rumours about him, but no one knew if even half of them were true, even his own twin brother. Katelyn, Aaron’s girlfriend and Neil’s friend, was maybe the only person in school who wasn’t obsessed with Andrew one way or another, but she liked to tell Neil all the juicy gossip in gym class on Friday morning.

It was, ironically, also Katelyn’s fault that Neil was stuck here with Marissa, and therefore at least partly her fault that he’d asked Andrew to dance.

Andrew led the way onto the dancefloor, looking unruffled and impenetrable in his black suit. The only pop of colour was a golden tie pin with a tiny bee on it, and Neil marvelled at this innocuous little detail until Andrew held up his hands expectantly.

“Why?” Neil asked before he could stop himself. Andrew lowered his arms, watching him with honey-bright eyes.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? You turned down every single person who asked you to the winter formal. Even the boys.”

Neil felt heat creep up his neck and ears. He wasn’t supposed to know that. Alright, so he’d paid attention whenever Katelyn had updated him on “the Andrew situation” as she called it. It wasn’t his fault gym class was a snooze because their ancient teacher never let them do anything fun. Besides, Neil found it amusing how none of these people seemed to learn from the first few times Andrew had just walked away from someone asking him to the dance.

Katelyn said they all wanted Andrew because he was mysterious and good-looking and radiated bad boy vibes, with a potentially soft heart underneath that everyone wanted to be the first to dig free. Aaron usually pulled a lot of faces when she said stuff like that and then changed the topic.

“So?” Andrew asked, arching an eyebrow. It was sharp and precise and Neil felt rather mesmerised by it. His ears were burning now, and he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that several people around them were trying to watch them without being too obvious about it.

“Nothing,” Neil said. “I just didn’t think you’d want to dance with me.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

“I didn’t,” Neil babbled, “I mean, I did, obviously, but… never mind. Do you really want to do this?”

“If you ask me again, I will walk away,” Andrew warned, holding his hands up again, one by Neil’s shoulder and the other by his hip. “Yes or no?”

Neil took a deep breath and nodded. Andrew shuffled a half-step closer and placed his hands precisely where he’d indicated. His touch was almost impersonal. Neil abruptly fretted about where to put his own hands until Andrew pointed at his own shoulders.

They were really rather nice, Andrew’s shoulders. The lapels of his suit jacket were made of leather, and he smelled of cigarette smoke and something vaguely woodsy. Somehow Neil had expected him to smell sweet, like chocolate or vanilla or those toffees he seemed to like so much. Not that Neil had made a mental note of the brand. It had just… passively imprinted itself on his memory from the many times he’d seen Andrew eat them in class and get scolded for it.

“Do you know how to dance?” Andrew drawled, the question underscored by another knife-sharp twitch of his eyebrow that made Neil’s stomach shiver and twist like that time Katelyn had dared him to eat an entire candy cane.

“Yeah. I mean, kind of. Not really.”

A second’s worth of amusement flitted across Andrew’s face. He was closer, suddenly. His hands felt warmer now, like they were slowly getting used to holding Neil.

“Do you?” Neil murmured.

“Neil,” Andrew said, and the name reverberated through Neil’s spine, grounding him and making him dizzy at the same time. “Why did you ask me to dance?”

“Because I wanted to,” Neil whispered, pinned to the spot by Andrew’s low voice. The last time they’d been this close had been that time Andrew had found Neil in the locker rooms having a panic attack and calmed him down.

The time before that, Neil had spectacularly slipped on a patch of ice and ended up with a bloody nose, and Andrew had been the one to pull him up by the scruff of his neck and wipe his face clean.

Before that, Neil had tripped in the cafeteria and splattered himself with food right in front of Andrew, and before that, Andrew had walked past Neil arguing with a teacher and landing himself in detention.

They’d never spoken much outside of these bizarrely regular and increasingly disastrous occurrences, but Neil felt like he’d still gotten to know Andrew better than most of the people who’d unsuccessfully asked him to the winter formal.

Or maybe he was fooling himself. It wasn’t like Andrew ever said much. Not even that time Neil had picked a fight with an older student and Andrew had stepped in to save him from getting punched in the face.

But now, apparently, they were dancing, or at least doing a slow, tentative kind of shuffling in place to the music. Andrew’s eyes were still boring into Neil’s. He had a knack for making Neil feel like the only other person that existed in the world when he looked at him like that, and Neil found himself unable to look away.

“Do you want to leave,” Andrew murmured as the music changed from a classical piece to something more contemporary.

“Trying to get rid of me so soon?” Neil joked feebly. Andrew merely continued waiting for a proper response, so Neil tapped the hand that was on his shoulder and offered his own, leading them off the dancefloor and toward one of the doors that had been heavily decorated with mistletoe and tinsel.

Neither of them acknowledged the mistletoe, though Neil felt his ears burn again as they passed underneath it. Maybe later.

They emerged into the school parking lot and the cold air made him shiver. A thin layer of snow was coating the ground and the cars and light spilled out of the windows, carving diamond patches into the night. They were still holding hands.

“Thank you,” Neil said, “for dancing with me.”

The words formed a cloud in front of his mouth. Andrew’s thumb dispersed them as it settled on Neil’s bottom lip.

“I would have said yes,” Andrew muttered, eyes still fixed on Neil’s mouth.

“You did say yes,” Neil pointed out, confused.

“If you had asked me, before. To the formal.”

“Oh,” Neil said. “Well, maybe next time you should ask me instead. I’m told I can be a little dense.”

“How self-aware of you,” Andrew said and leaned in. Before he could ask for permission, Neil closed the last few wisps of space between them and kissed him, hands balled up tight by his sides.

He was too nervous to register much of the first kiss, but the second and third were pretty good. So good, in fact, that he didn’t want to stop even when he heard the door opening behind them and several people spilling out.

“I can’t believe Josten of all people managed to thaw out the ice prince,” someone whispered loudly.

“Such a shame,” a girl moaned. “It really is true, all the good ones are either gay or taken.”

“Or both,” someone else replied, and they giggled as they got into one of the cars.

Neil reluctantly tore himself away from Andrew’s mouth and licked his lips.

“Are you?” he asked.

“Gay? Yes,” Andrew said.

“And taken?” Neil pressed, heart beating in his throat. Andrew lazily flicked his eyes over his face and wiped an errant snowflake from Neil’s collar.

“It would seem so.”

“Great,” Neil said giddily, “okay. Do you want to go back in?”

“Not particularly,” Andrew replied. “You are a terrible dancer.”

“You’re not exactly a prima ballerina either.”

“Damn, there goes that career option,” Andrew deadpanned, briefly squeezing Neil’s hand. “I have a car.”

“Good for you.”

Andrew rolled his eyes and tugged on his hand until Neil followed him to a sleek black monstrosity at the back of the parking lot. There were candy wrappers twisted into flowers, bees and other shapes scattered across the passenger seat and Andrew swept them off impatiently, but Neil managed to salvage a little toffee wrapper star.

Andrew had shown him how to make those when he’d had his panic attack. Neil had already forgotten, but it had helped to focus on something other than the fear.

“What now?”

Andrew stared at him for a moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Choose your own adventure,” he offered, with a sarcastic little flourish of his hand.

“Honestly, I’m fine with anything that doesn’t involve baby pictures,” Neil said, shuddering. “What are my options?”

“Option number one, I drive you home.”

“That’s all?”

“Option number two, we make out—”

“Two, I choose number two.”

Andrew shot him a scathing look before proceeding to recite a long list of other options in droning monotone, possibly just to mess with Neil’s head. Neil barely listened, watching Andrew’s mouth instead.

“I still want option number two,” he said the minute Andrew was done.

“Fine,” Andrew conceded, scowling. “But I want the milkshake.”

“I’m sure we can combine those two things.”

“I suppose we can.”

“Is this a date, then?” Neil grinned. “Does that mean you like me?”

“You are the human embodiment of a disaster,” Andrew huffed.

“Luckily you’re always there to pick up the pieces. Can we make out now?”

Andrew reached out and reeled him in by his jacket. As they kissed, Neil couldn’t help but think that Katelyn was going to murder him for betraying their little immune-to-Andrew-Minyard club, and then bring him back to life just to pester him for gossip until his actual dying day.

Could be worse, he supposed. So long as there were no baby pictures involved.


End file.
